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Christiane Amanpourgained global fame in the 1990s as a war correspondent for CNN and parlayed it into a simultaneous gig with CBS’s 60 Minutes. This year, only 16 months after stepping into a coveted anchor spot on ABC’s This Week, she returned to foreign news reporting (for ABC and CNN) because “there simply aren’t enough people doing it.” Interviewed by Alison Beard

HBR: How did you get started in journalism?

Amanpour: My first job was at a local television station in Providence [Rhode Island]. They took a leap of faith with me, I think because they saw a young woman who was very serious about her career path and knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. I was committed to journalism; I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. Today I think that’s quite unusual. Many undergraduates don’t know what they want to do, so most of them put off the final decision and go to graduate school. So I think it was the ambition I showed, the sense of mission, the desire to improve myself, and also the willingness to do anything, go anywhere. No task was too paltry, and when things were above my experience level, I didn’t shrink. I just did the very best I could.

You’ve said that covering the war in Bosnia for CNN was a turning point in your career. Why?

That’s where I really started my professional journey. The first time they sent me abroad I was based in Europe, and several months after that, Iraq invaded Kuwait. I was immediately sent to work on that story, even though I was very junior. With CNN being what CNN was in those days, it was all hands on deck, and I was very lucky that was the case because I learned my craft, my trade—whatever you want to call it—on the job. After the Gulf War, I turned to the next breaking story, which was the implosion that was going on in the former Yugoslavia, starting in the summer of 1991. The Bosnian War began 20 years ago in April. And it was a turning point for many reasons. First, my only war experience had been covering armies against armies in the desert. This time I was seeing a war against civilians, and so I had to adjust the way I looked at it, the way I covered it, the way I talked about it. I was questioned early on about my objectivity. And I was very upset about it because objectivity is our golden rule, and I take it very seriously. But I was forced to examine what objectivity actually means, and I realized that in a situation such as the one in Bosnia, where you had ethnic cleansing—genocide—you have a duty to call it like it is and to tell the truth. Objectivity, in that regard, means giving all sides a fair hearing but never drawing a false moral equivalence. So I called who were the aggressors and who were the victims, and I’m very, very proud of that now, because that was what we had to do. I think we did the right thing as journalists and eventually managed to be part of the reason that the world intervened. We led and we forced leadership in our international sphere at the highest levels of the U.S. and European government. Unfortunately, we’re looking now at Syria, where we’re trying to do our job again, but it’s very, very difficult. Television organizations in the United States, except CNN, do not give enough or adequate weight to international stories. And the world is again saying: “Oh, we can’t intervene.” Excuses are being made, and leadership is not happening.

You recently decided to go back to reporting after spending 16 months as the anchor of This Weekon ABC. Why?

Because there simply aren’t enough people doing it. What I wanted to do when I took the helm of This Week was to find that important nexus between what happens overseas and how it affects America. And I was very proud of the international stories that I was able to cover during those 16 months. ABC owned the Arab Spring last year. But now I’ve decided that there are just not enough voices reporting on foreign affairs, and so that’s what I’m doing again. I believe that Americans need to know about what’s going on in the world. I don’t believe in being professorial. I don’t believe in shoving their spinach down their throats. But I do know that you cannot be a strong democracy unless you have a citizenry that’s fully vested, fully informed.

Has being a woman been an advantage or a disadvantage for you?

It’s been nothing but an advantage. It’s allowed me to get my foot into places where men have not been able to. I will say, however, that there is a dearth of female leadership in this business. I’d like to see a woman president of a news network. I think that women are making massive strides, and I’m very gratified with my position, with how I’ve climbed the ladder, but I still lobby on behalf of all the women who work alongside me and are coming up after me. They need to be treated equally. They need to be paid the same as men—equal play, equal pay. There are still glass ceilings that need to be shattered.

You’re a wife and a mother. How do you balance that with your job?

Before my child was born, I said a lot of things. I said, for instance, that I was going to take him on the road with me and dress him up in Kevlar diapers and get a mini bulletproof vest, all that kind of funny stuff, glib answers to people who ask how you’ll continue with your career. I thought it would be easier to be a mother and a war correspondent than it is. My very good friend Marie Colvin, of the London Sunday Times, was recently killed along with another colleague in Syria, and it’s been a source of great grief and sorrow and introspection and loss. I wonder whether I am alive because I have a child—because, even though I still consider myself to be at the peak of my career, when I go to those places, I calibrate what I do and how long I stay more carefully than I did before I was a mother.

When you’re dropping into different war zones, how do you and your crews get up to speed and work together quickly, particularly in really high-pressure situations?

There isn’t a secret. It’s hard work, it’s experience, it’s time spent in these locations, gathering, gathering, gathering knowledge as you go. So each time you go out you’re better prepared, you’re more aware, you know where to go to look for the stories and for the people who can help you. Leadership is built, I think, by experience, by time spent, time put in. Credibility matters.

You’ve interviewed dozens of world leaders over the years. How do you define good leadership?

I believe that a good leader has to have the courage of his or her convictions. But leadership also means give-and-take, not going into negotiations with your ego in play. To give you an example, what made Nelson Mandela a great leader after he’d been in prison nearly 28 years? He was a great leader because he did not believe in a zero-sum game. He didn’t believe that the other side had to be crushed in order for him to win. So, in his case, black majority rule was not meant to crush and cripple the white minority. To negotiate with then South African president F.W. de Klerk, he had to understand the whites. He had to have empathy so they didn’t think he was coming to walk all over them. I’ve talked to leaders in Israel and Palestine who say that in order to make the peace process work, you have to know the story of “the other,” which isn’t to say you accept everything about the other, but you understand that the other has a story too. With Iran and the United States right now this is the key challenge; both are locked in their knowledge of the other, but from 30 years ago. For the United States it’s still the distrust that was created during the hostage crisis back in 1979, and for Iran it’s the distrust that was generated in 1980 when Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and the United States sided with Iraq. And there’s no dialogue. On both sides there’s a complete absence of leadership on trying to come together and sort out this vital relationship. I once asked Christine Lagarde, the current head of the IMF, if she thought there was a difference between female and male leadership, and she said, “Yes, with men it’s about their libido.” And she meant testosterone, ego. She said that many, many times negotiations have been much more difficult or not happened at all because of this idea that winning means the other one has to lose, instead of trying to create a win-win situation.

Your father is Persian, your mother is British, and you grew up in Iran and the UK. How did that cross-cultural experience help you in your career?

It simply made me aware, from the moment I was born, of different cultures. My mother is Catholic, my father is Muslim, my husband is Jewish. I’ve lived in a completely multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious environment, in some of the most difficult places in the world. I’ve seen firsthand that you can bridge differences, you can have tolerance between groups. The trick is to minimize the extremes, whether it’s in politics or in religion or in any kind of relationship, and to stick to the sensible center, which is where the vast majority, not only of this country but of the entire world, lies.

You mentioned your husband, Jamie Rubin. You’re both very high-powered people. How do you navigate that in terms of work-life balance?

Fondly. We admire each other as well as love each other, not for any prowess but for what we believe in, for what’s important to us, for our work ethic, for our worldviews. We made an agreement when we got married that if I traveled, he would stay; if he traveled, I would stay. We’re very focused on what’s the best environment for our child because that’s our biggest responsibility. And we are very present, hands-on, always-there parents.

You’re now working for two networks again.

Very difficult! Invigorating but in terms of time management I’m going to use all the skills of Houdini. That said, I’m proud of it. I was the first person in the United States to have a dual contract in 1996 when I was full-time at CNN and a contributor with 60 Minutes. I got to work for some of the greatest leaders in this business. Ted Turner defines being a leader—he’s innovative, he’s courageous, he’s on the cutting edge, he’s ahead of his time, he puts his money where his mouth is and presses ahead when everyone around him is saying no or doesn’t believe in his dream or what he can achieve. At 60 Minutes, Don Hewitt, the executive producer, was one of the creators of television as we know it today. So I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve died and gone to journalism heaven to work with these leaders, and I know how lucky I am.

Would you ever want to take on more of a leadership role in a news organization?

I don’t know. I hope I’m doing my responsibility to lead when it’s necessary and to follow when it’s necessary, and to empower as many young people who come to me—mostly women, but men as well—and to encourage and mentor, which I do year-round.

What advice do you give them?

Have a dream. Have a passion. Know that there’s no such thing as overnight success, that success comes only with enormous hard work and commitment and sacrifice. And know that the only way to be good at something is to love what you do and to really put in that legwork, because in the end your credibility is built on your experience and on the trust with which others view you.

A version of this article appeared in the May 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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